“A Horse and Two Goats”is a short story written by acclaimed Indian writer R.K. Narayan.

The
story was first published in 1960 in the Indian newspaper The Hindu. It did not reach a broad
international audience until it was published again in 1970 as the title story in Narayan’s short
story collection A Horse and Two Goats and Other Stories. The story appeared for a third time in
Under the Banyan Tree, another volume of Narayan’s short stories published in 1985. Although
the story was generally praised by critics, it is not one of Narayan’s more well-known works.

The story takes place in Kritam, one of the smallest of India’s seven hundred thousand villages.
Despite its small size, the village has a grandiose name: Kritam means “crown” or “coronet” in
the Indian language of Tamil. There are only thirty houses in the village, most of them simple
thatched huts. The only sophisticated residence in the village is the Big House, a brick and
cement building from whose well the local villagers get their water. Muni, an old goat herder,
lives with his wife in one of the huts. He is the poorest resident of the village. Every day, he
herds his flock of forty goats and sheep to the highway on the outskirts of the village and lets
them graze as he sits and watches them.

One day, Muni picks some “drumsticks,” or seed pods, from the tree in front of his home and
asks his wife to cook them in a sauce for him to eat. Because of the couple’s poverty, Muni’s
daily meals usually consist of only millet and an onion at lunch. Muni’s wife agrees to make the
sauce if he can get all of the necessary ingredients from the village shop: dhal, chili, curry leaves,
mustard, coriander, gingelly oil, and a potato. Muni has no money to pay for the items, but tries
to convince the shop owner to give them to him on credit by engaging in conversation and
laughing at his jokes. However, the shop owner shows Muni a ledger of past debts that he owes,
and says he must pay them off before he can apply for credit. Muni tells him that his daughter
will give him some money for his fiftieth birthday, although he does not actually have a
daughter. The shop owner does not believe him and says that he looks at least seventy.

Muni goes home and tells his wife to sell the drumsticks, since he could not get the ingredients
for the sauce. He then takes his flock of goats and goes to the highway to let them graze as usual.
While he is there, he sits on a pedestal at the base of a clay statue depicting a majestic horse and
warrior. The statue had been there since Muni was a young child, and his grandfather had
explained to him that the horse in the statue was a reference to the mythical horse Kalki, who
according to Tamil legend will come to life when the world ends and trample all bad men. While
Muni is sitting there, he sees a yellow station wagon coming towards him down the highway.

The car runs out of gas and comes to a stop on the road in front of the statue. A white foreigner
gets out of the car and asks Muni in English whether there is a gas station nearby. However,
Muni cannot communicate with him because he does not speak English and the foreigner does
not speak Tamil. The foreigner, who tells Muni he is a coffee trader from New York, takes an
interest in the statue and wants to buy it. He offers to pay Muni for the statue, thinking that it
belongs to him. Muni does not understand what the foreigner wants, and initially mistakes him
for a police officer, because he is dressed in khaki. Muni believes the man had arrived to
investigate a dead body that was found on the border between Kritam and a neighboring village a
few weeks before. He tells him that he does not know anything about the incident and that the
murderer probably lives in the other village.
The foreigner does not understand. He offers Muni some cigarettes, and explains that he and his
wife, Ruth, decided to travel to India on vacation after a power failure in the Empire State
Building forced him to work four hours without air conditioning on a hot summer day. Muni
eventually realizes that the foreigner is interested in the statue, and starts explaining the statue’s
history and the legend of Kalki to him. He talks about the Hindi religion and asks the foreigner
about his family while the latter tries to negotiate a price for the statue and says that it would
look good in his living room. The conversation continues for a while before the foreigner gives
Muni a hundred-rupee note and asks him to help move the statue to his car. Muni believes at first
that the foreigner is asking him for change, and suggests that he go to the village money-lender.
When the foreigner stoops down to pet some of his goats, however, Muni mistakenly believes
that the man is giving him a hundred rupees to buy his flock. Elated, Muni accepts the man’s
money and leaves the goats behind for him.

Thinking Muni had agreed to sell him the statue, the foreigner flags down a passing truck and
pays the men to help him detach the statue from the pedestal and move it to his car. He also pays
to siphon off some of their gas so he can restart his engine. Muni goes home and shows his wife
the hundred-rupee note, telling her that he received it from a foreign man who stopped to buy his
goats. At that moment, however, the couple hears bleating outside their door and discover two of
Muni’s goats standing there. Muni is confused, while his wife suspects him of stealing the
money, and says she will go to her parents’ home because she does not want to be there when the
police apprehend him.

The main themes of the story are culture clash, miscommunication, money, wealth, and poverty.
Narayan contrasts Muni’s impoverished but culturally rich lifestyle with the foreigner’s
materialistic worldview, in which everything may be bought and paid for. While the horse statue
carries great cultural and religious importance for Muni’s village, to the foreigner it is just a
decorative item to serve as a talking piece during house parties.

he Bangle Sellers: Explanation by stanza

Stanza One:

Bangle sellers are we who bear

Our shining loads to the temple fair…
Who will buy these delicate, bright
Rainbow-tinted circles of light?
Lustrous tokens of radiant lives,
For happy daughters and happy wives.

The poem begins with the speakers introducing themselves as bangle sellers who sell their
articles at the temple fair. They call out to the people to buy their bangles. These hawkers
describe their bangles as delicate, bright, rainbow-tinted circles of light. They advertise by
questioning who will buy these bangles for their daughters and wives.

It is important to note here that though the speakers of the poem are several, it appears as if there
is a single speaker. This is due to the fact that they all have the same purpose and are thus seen
singularly as a ‘class essence’. Also, the Bangles here are called ‘lustrous tokens of radiant
lives‘. It shows us the Indianness of the poem, where bangles are bought on special occasions
and are associated with happiness and prosperity.

Stanza two:

Some are meet for a maiden’s wrist,

Silver and blue as the mountain mist,
Some are flushed like the buds that dream
On the tranquil brow of a woodland stream,
Some are aglow with the bloom that cleaves
To the limpid glory of new born leaves

The second stanza onward, the speakers talk of the kinds of bangles they have. Some of these
bangles are suited for a maiden’s, that is, a young unmarried woman’s wrist. They are Silver and
Blue in colour like the mountain mist. Some of them are ‘flushed’, that is pink and light red in
colour like flower buds growing beside a woodland stream. Still others are green and glowing
like the transparent beauty of new born leaves.

In Indian society, bangles have an important cultural and religious place. Different coloured
bangles are worn by women in different stages of life. Blue, Silver, and Green are generally
worn by young maidens. It is interesting to note that the poet here uses the words ‘flushed like
the buds that dream.’ The word ‘buds’ here is suggestive of chastity. ‘Buds that dreams‘ present
before us an image of young girls dreaming of marriage. In this stanza, the poet presents the
stage of youth in a woman’s life.

Stanza Three:

Some are like fields of sunlit corn,

Meet for a bride on her bridal morn,
Some, like the flame of her marriage fire,
Or, rich with the hue of her heart’s desire,
Tinkling, luminous, tender, and clear,
Like her bridal laughter and bridal tear.

In the third stanza, the bangle sellers say that some of their bangles are yellow like ‘fields of
sunlit corn‘. Bangles of this colour are perfect for a bride on her bridal morn. Some of the
bangles they have are bright red. They represent the flame of a newly turned bride’s marriage
fire, that is, the passion of her newly made relation. The red bangles also stand for her heart’s
desire. The bangles are ‘tinkling, luminous, tender and clear’. They express both her joy of
starting a new life with her husband and the sorrow of leaving her parents behind.

What we find striking is the use of the words ‘bridal laughter and bridal tears.’ These words
convey the whole of a woman’s transition in life from a maiden to a wife and all the emotions
attached with it in a single line. This stanza marks the transition of life from a maiden to a wife.
Stanza Four:

Some are purple and gold flecked grey

For she who has journeyed through life midway,
Whose hands have cherished, whose love has blest,
And cradled fair sons on her faithful breast,
And serves her household in fruitful pride,
And worships the gods at her husband’s side.

In the final stanza of the poem The Bangle Sellers, the speakers continue to advertise their
bangles. They shout that some of their bangles are purple and gold flecked grey. These are suited
for a middle-aged woman who has ‘journeyed through life’. They are for her who has raised her
children well, and has remained faithful to her husband and family. These bangles are, they say,
perfect for she who has maintained her household with pride and ‘worships the gods at her
husband’s side‘.

In this stanza, the poet writes down what she perceives as the qualities of a good wife. Such a
woman is truly deserving of the purple and gold flecked grey bangles in her eyes. Here we
should pay attention to the word ‘sons’ used to mean offspring. While it could be a happy
coincidence, it could also suggest the ingrained attitude of male preference in the society of
Sarojini Naidu’s times.

The poem, ‘The bangle Sellers’ is a celebration of the female life. It shows us the various stages
of a woman’s life and attempts to represent the Indian culture and the role of bangle sellers in the
traditional set up.